Nanomaterials containing noble metals are commonly used in biological and medical applications. For example, nanomaterials containing gold or silver are commonly injected into animals as delivery vehicles for drug targeting to diseased tissues. While these nanomaterials have favourable properties for biomedical applications such as the production of heat, the scattering of light, and high surface area-to-volume ratio, they are difficult to measure and detect in a biological system. Typically, destructive techniques such as inductively-couple plasma atomic emission spectroscopy is used for analyzing nanomaterials containing noble metals. Therefore, a primary drawback of using noble metal containing nanomaterials at a size of 5 nm and above in biology and medicine is the lack of fluorescence emission. Furthermore, the design of noble-metal containing nanomaterials with fluorescence is also limited because of the quenching effects of noble metals on the fluorophores. For example, the adsorption of an organic dye molecule (alexa-fluoro 750) will be quenched when they are in contact with the surface of the noble metal.